Qualitative Research Journal

Bricolage and the Health Promoting School

Kerry Renwick

Downloaded by VICTORIA UNIVERSITY (Australia) At 11:41 03 November 2014 (PT)

Article information:
To cite this document:
Kerry Renwick , (2014),"Bricolage and the Health Promoting School", Qualitative Research Journal, Vol. 14
Iss 3 pp. 318 - 332
Permanent link to this document:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/QRJ-10-2013-0065
Downloaded on: 03 November 2014, At: 11:41 (PT)
References: this document contains references to 82 other documents.
To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com
The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 5 times since 2014*

Users who downloaded this article also downloaded:

Mark Dooris, (2001),"The Health Promoting University: a critical exploration of theory and practice", Health
Education, Vol. 101 Iss 2 pp. 51-60
Ray Marks, Ray Marks, (2011),"Healthy schools and colleges: what works, what is needed, and why? Part
III", Health Education, Vol. 111 Iss 5 pp. 340-346
Elizabeth Birse, Irving Rootman, (1999),"Implications of health promotion for integrated health systems",
Leadership in Health Services, Vol. 12 Iss 1 pp. 1-5

Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by 414810 []

For Authors
If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for
Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines
are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information.

About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com

Emerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company
manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as
providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.
Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee
on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive
preservation.
*Related content and download information correct at time of download.

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1443-9883.htm

QRJ
14,3

Bricolage and the Health

Promoting School

318

College of Education, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia

Kerry Renwick

Downloaded by VICTORIA UNIVERSITY (Australia) At 11:41 03 November 2014 (PT)

Received 30 October 2013

Accepted 7 May 2014

Qualitative Research Journal

Vol. 14 No. 3, 2014
pp. 318-332
r Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1443-9883
DOI 10.1108/QRJ-10-2013-0065

Abstract
Purpose The propositional knowledge about the Health Promoting School (HPS) and how it
privileges the health sector, and research through intervention and behaviour change rather than
gaining an understanding of how social bases of health impact and influence individuals and the
wider school community. The purpose of this paper is to explore how bricolage offers opportunity for
understanding complexity, thick description and inter- and multi-disciplinary work. The experience of
health promotion and what it looks like at the school level and provides epistemological considerations
for reframing research about HPSs for purposes of social justice and equity through bricolage.
Design/methodology/approach An introduction reveals the challenges of health promotion
settings, and schools in particular to achieve social justice and equity. Bricolage is discussed with
reference to complexity, thick description and inter- and multi-disciplinary work. Considerations are
given to bricolage as research to gain understanding and to contribute to social change.
Findings As a setting the HPS is a complex site of social interaction and where there is interplay of
multiple, casual factors that influence health and well-being. The potential for social justice and equity
remains latent and new approaches to investigating and researching are required. Bricolage offers
substantial possibilities as it recognises the value of researching social contexts but with a deliberate
intent to engage with participants.
Practical implications This paper considers how bricolage can re-focus ontological and
epistemological positions to engage in health promotion as a social action.
Originality/value This paper raises questions about the ability of the HPS model to deliver on
social justice under current compliance regimes.
Keywords Social justice, Health promotion, Bricolage, Health promoting schools
Paper type Conceptual paper

Introduction
The sole gaze on illness located in an imperfect body has been argued (Antonovsky,
1979) to be an inadequate way to view health as there is a need to also consider the
environment that the imperfect body is both located within and subject to. The World
Health Organisations (WHO) perspective on health promotion and specific work
around settings for health has been attributed to Antonovskys consideration of what
creates health (Kickbusch, 1996). There is a growing understanding that health is not
purely or solely corporeal and consideration of how social inequality not only impacts
on those people who are without but also the level of health and quality of life
experienced by the total population (Dorling, 2012).
The challenge faced by schools as a setting for health promotion and education,
lies within the ways in which health is viewed (the ontological) and how knowledge is
selected and shared (the epistemological). Unlike many other areas of curriculum,
health promotion and education in schools draws from two different sectors health
and education. What the health sector views as required and necessary knowledge to
be conveyed about health (particularly) to school students is usually couched in terms
of single interventions to facilitate behaviour change (Dooris, 2004; Antonovsky, 1996)
because students are presumed to be at risk of some (preventable) illness. There is
unlikely to be any reference to the health education needs of students that may provide

Downloaded by VICTORIA UNIVERSITY (Australia) At 11:41 03 November 2014 (PT)

opportunity to advocate, enable or mediate (WHO, 1986) what influences their health
and well-being and that of their family and community.
The propositional knowledge about the Health Promoting School (HPS) as a specific
setting and how they are portrayed predominantly privileges the health sector over the
social health needs of individuals and the wider school community. This is reflected
in research that considers the efficacy of interventions and behaviour change as an
outcome but with little or no acknowledgment of health and quality of life as the result
of how social determinates impact on health. This paper will explore how the
principles of bricolage complexity, thick description and inter- and multi-disciplinary
approaches all provide insights into new ways of looking at health promotion at the
school level and offers epistemological considerations for reframing research about
HPS for purposes of social justice.
Settings as a focus
The WHOs goal of Health for All is based on the idea that health is a human right and
that health is a resource that contributes to both quality and length of life. Health of
individuals and communities is neither a static concept nor a universally shared
experience. Health varies with age, position, income, gender, indignity, geography and
many other aspects of life and living. These concepts arise out of Antonovskys (1996)
question about where health is created. In 1986 at a conference of health professionals
in Ottawa Canada, a consensus about health being more than medicine emerged. That
considerations about individuals as social actors and communities with or without
resources for health also needed recognition thus leading to the development of what is
termed New Public Health now encapsulated in the Ottawa Charter (WHO, 1986).
During subsequent WHO sponsored conferences on health promotion the principles
of the Ottawa Charter were both confirmed and more closely defined based on
experiences and reflections of health promotion practice in the intervening years.
Reaffirming these principles in 2009 at the Adelaide conference participants drew on
the spirit of 1978 Alma-Ata Declaration to acknowledge social justice and equity as
prerequisities for health (WHO, 2009, p. 6). At a later conference in supportive
environments, both socially and ecologically were seen as being inter-dependent and
inseparable with health; that (e)quity must be a basic priority in creating supportive
environments for health (WHO, 2009, p. 14). In the Jakarta Declaration (WHO, 2009)
the settings in which people live, love work and play were seen as being critical for
building capacity for health and well-being (with the HPS being one model) as they
represent the organisational base of the infrastructure required for health promotion
(WHO, 2009, p. 20). Through the reflections on the intervening years of work in health
promotion since Ottawa participants in the Jakarta Conference recognised that that
health literacy was an important element in that it was seen as a means for individuals
to acquire and use knowledge while also being a resource for engaging in health at
personal and community levels.
As a specific area of inquiry health promotion has been growing and evolving since
1986. The shift in understandings about the work of health promotion has also evolved,
changing through informed practice and increasingly sophisticated ideas of what is
both possible and desirable. The understandings about settings have become
broadened to not only include cities, hospital, schools and workplaces but also sites
that are less organisationally defined and structured such as the public spaces of
streets/neighbourhoods, parks/open spaces, markets/malls and public transport
(Dooris, 2010). There has been a research effort targeted at trying to systematise

Bricolage and
the HPS

319

QRJ
14,3

Downloaded by VICTORIA UNIVERSITY (Australia) At 11:41 03 November 2014 (PT)

320

findings to distil understandings about what works in settings and therefore what is
the panacea (Bodstein, 2007; Dooris, 2010; Dooris et al., 2007; Whitelaw et al., 2001) but
virtually nothing to understand variability of health promotion practice and the
experiences of participants (Poland et al., 2009).
The expressions and emphasis of how settings are maximised to develop and
enhance health varies due to its dependence on political will and systemic foci as well
as global and national economic circumstances. While there have been some changes
to the ways in which settings have been conceptualised and researched, the principle of
health through social justice and equity has remained remarkably consistent at least
in the theory of health promotion.
The HPS as a setting
In Australia the settings approach to health has been readily accepted as a holistic and
multifaceted approach (WHO, 1986) and the focus on schools as a setting was well
developed in the 1990s (Colquhoun et al., 1997) and continued in the new millennium
(ODea and Maloney, 2000; Mukoma and Flisher, 2004; Laurence et al., 2007) with
a renewal of focus affirmed by the State Government in Victoria March 2012. Typically
the HPS is presented as having distinctive but inter-related areas of action with
indicative aspects. The HPS model is composed of three areas: curriculum, teaching
and learning; school organisation, ethos and environment; and services and
partnerships. According to the WHO these areas of action aims to foster health and
learning with all of the measures available to the school and its community
(www.who.int/school_youth_health/gshi/hps/en/).
In March 2012 the Victorian government re-launched the HPS model through the
Victorian Prevention and Health Promotion Achievement Program (2012). Based on
the WHO HPS model it identifies six components of a whole school approach to health
promotion and how the model aligns to key learning and accountability structures. The
model is presented as a way to improve the health well-being of children and young
people. However, it also lays a case for meeting benchmarks for health priority areas.
In describing the focus of the intervention a mangerialist perspective is introduced
such that health can be used as a vehicle for justifying surveillance about pre- and
externally developed criteria (Renwick, 2006).
According to Baric (1993) and Grossman and Scala (1993) research about settings
for health promotion such as in schools (HPS), predominately utilises a management
and systems framework. This Victorian Governments approach (2012) is characterised
by consideration of management principles, processes, techniques and elements
(Renwick, 2006) of what is defined as health promotion such as policies and procedures.
These in and of themselves do not purport to redress any social or environmental
determinate of health and they never explicitly articulate a concern for an outcome of
social justice or equity. Rather they are a means to measure a school against specific
criteria and determine if a school could claim HPS status.
Within a school context there are many positions and expectations. Education as a
discipline area is positioned in different ways as compared to health. The limited
engagement of schools with and for health promotion has been documented (Dooris,
2010; Guggleberger, 2011). There is evidence of care and concern for students and their
families as a part of the wider school community; however, there is little or no specific
commitment to health as defined by the health sector. Schools are complex social
environments with many demands and expectations. Researching schools as a setting
where health is created has to embrace complexity and both the subjectivity and

Downloaded by VICTORIA UNIVERSITY (Australia) At 11:41 03 November 2014 (PT)

agency of individuals; it needs to have explicit the ontological and epistemological

positions within the research especially if it is to lay claim to any gain for social justice.
Taking bricolage to school
Levis-Strauss (1966) described how people as subjected actors interrelated with their
surroundings in holistic ways. He used the term bricoleur to describe those people who
make use of those resources that are available and can be used in a variety of ways,
dependant on need and recognition of possibility. Thus bricolage makes use of the
resources at hand including the non-human but also the human, that is something of
the person (the bricoloeur), that gives rise to both entrepreneurial and innovative
responses. In this sense bricolage is circumstantial as it is dependent on what is
available, and it is malleable in how it uses both process and resources in different and
presumably unintended ways, generating new purpose and intent (Duymedjian and
Ruling, 2010).
Hatton (1988) described the work of teachers as being bricolage because it involved
the adoption of ad hoc (coping, survival, dilemma management, etc.) strategies
(p. 348). Building on Hattons work Scribner (2005) investigated how teachers engaged
with their students while under increasing pressure of external accountability
and surveillance. Scribner concluded that teachers acted as bricoleurs by necessity and
survival, and were active in assimilating various strategies, melding together past
experiences to address a current problem. Teachers are in a continual state of
transforming knowledge to make that knowledge relevant to their context. They keep
bits of things that work and discard what does not (p. 307). Teachers drew on
whatever they had available to them to engage students in learning rather than for
policy or school improvement and accountability rhetoric. This perspective positions
the role of teacher as being subjected action by someone who carefully and
thoughtfully makes a series of professional judgements about what and how to teach
(Honan, 2007, p. 614, original emphasis).
The teacher as bricoleur is no less evident than in the teaching of health education.
Health education curricula are more often than not presented as a series of
considerations about national health concerns and associated behaviour change
interventions. While some of these are appropriate considerations for young people
about their immediate health, such as prevention of skin cancer through being
sunsmart, engagement in physical activity and mental health, others are less so, such
as adult onset diabetes and heart disease. Most interventions that are offered as health
education programmes are developed outside the school in a one-size-fits-all, top-down
approach (Renwick, 2013) and are constructed in what McCarthy et al. (2009) call
a social problems/moral panics framework. Teachers are motivated by what they
believe is in the best interests of their students (Scribner, 2005; Honan, 2007) and
therefore draw heavily on the materials provided to ensure that they provide accurate
information about health topics that their students presumably need to know and are
possibly interested in.
Teachers are, however, not the only ones interested in what students are taught and
learn. Yet the work undertaken by teachers is too often misunderstood or ignored in the
development of health education programmes by external organisations. Schools have
long been a target of agencies and social institutions especially by those with a focus
on health. A sampling of health intervention research includes mental health and
bullying (Wells et al., 2003; Vreeman and Carroll, 2007; Durlak et al., 2011); social and
emotional health (Bond et al., 2004; Patton et al., 2006); diet, exercise and obesity

Bricolage and
the HPS

321

QRJ
14,3

Downloaded by VICTORIA UNIVERSITY (Australia) At 11:41 03 November 2014 (PT)

322

rez-Rodrigo and Aranceta, 2001; Sahota et al., 2001; Bauer et al., 2004; Shepherd
(PeA
et al., 2006; Stice et al., 2006; Sharma, 2006; Brown and Summerbell, 2009; Shaya et al.,
2008; Harris et al., 2009), harm minimisation (McBride et al., 2004), drug and alcohol
(Cuijpers, 2002; Dusenbury et al., 2003) and peer-led vs adult-lead health education
(Mellanby et al., 2000). In addition to an intervention approach to specific health
problems or illnesses there is also evaluation of interventions for their fidelity to
implementation process, pre-determined outcomes, programme achievements and
challenges for sustainability beyond the intervention and surveillance period (Durlak
and DuPre, 2008).
The literature on HPSs often describes specific interventions, facilitated within the
school context (Sobczyk et al., 1995; Moon et al., 1999; Schofield et al., 2003; Mukoma
and Flisher, 2004). They range in activity from interference with; involvement in; and
intrusion into the explicit and hidden curriculum; and intercession for teachers to
change their teaching practices. Further the research describe a plethora of outcomes
from specific behaviour changes: physical activity (Crosswaite et al., 1996);
self-protective behaviours ( Jamison et al., 1998); health eating; cancer control and
cardiovascular risk reduction (Sobczyk et al., 1995; Laurence et al., 2007); smoking,
alcohol and drug use (Moon et al., 1999; Schofield et al., 2003), through to health-related
policies, practices and infra-structure (Mitchell et al., 2000).
The focus on HPSs as settings to access young people and reach into their families
and wider community has a long history (Dooris et al., 2007) and has been driven by a
need to intervene about health that may or may not have relevance to the school and its
community. Such actions of interference and intrusion are based on population studies
and policy requirements as typically seen in interventions described in the Victorian
Prevention and Health Promotion Achievement Program (2012). If, as it is widely
argued, behaviour change is the aim of health promotion (Baum, 2007) how do
researchers know which particular behaviours require change within in any individual
setting? And why is it that individuals and communities in specific settings are
required to change their behaviour but private enterprises that both produce and
market goods and services what contribute to ill health are not? For instance, what
about manufacturers of energy-dense and nutrient-poor food; or companies that pollute
or makes use of child workers or companies who position fast food and gaming outlets
disproportionately in areas of low SES?
Within the context of health promotion schools as setting predominately focus on
the prevention of lifestyle diseases, the idea being that if healthy behaviours can be
established in childhood then there are both financial saving to be had as well as
prospective improvements to quality of life. Baum (2007) puts forward the need for
strategies that are equitable and that this requires understandings about the
complexity of local knowledge and concepts. In schools this is especially relevant given
the biomedical perception that educational epistemology is solely behaviouralist and
therefore behaviour modification/change and generation of healthy habits is the goal
of interventionist approaches. Dewey (1944) has argued that the development of habits
are important because they are not just demonstrable behaviours but they are formed
through understanding of the situations in which the habits operate and make sense.
In doing so they form an inclination or an intellectual predisposition for action and
thereby becoming a habit. This supports the development of the settings approach to
health promotion, especially when the major determinants of health are social; and
where a community is able to create a healthier environment because its people have
the knowledge and skills to do so (Burgher et al., 1999).

Downloaded by VICTORIA UNIVERSITY (Australia) At 11:41 03 November 2014 (PT)

Not surprisingly then there are limitations on what seems to be achievable in the
HPS as a setting. Is the social environment of every school that predictable? What
about the impact of SES on communities when health is defined according to a
privileged class perspective? If, as Wilkinson (2005) contends, health status is closely
linked to socioeconomic status and that health differences in populations arise out of
the social environment and that more egalitarian societies tend to be healthier, then
a one-size-fits-all approach to the HPS is not the best way to advance improvement.
In privileging dominant narratives and perspectives in research on HPSs is to generate
a reductionist perspective that according to Steinberg (2012) results in the voices of
those living within the settings being muted or silenced.
According to Levis-Strauss (1966) bricolage pays particular attention to the
relations of time, space and object, as well as knowledge as a practical reasoning
(Duymedjian and Ruling, 2010). Researching social locations and contexts demands
that we make use of what is at hand to actively construct our research methods
(Kincheloe, 2005a, p. 324) in order to understand what is occurring and why it is being
experienced in the particular way in that time, space. Thus in accepting that health is
socially constructed and that social determinates of health are experienced in
inequitable ways, then researching the HPS demands more of us as researchers than
passive, correct and universal methodology (Kincheloe, 2005a). Researching the HPS
as a setting and social context is limited when linear, step-by-step processes are
applied. Rather than be constrained by pre-determined research processes that limit
understandings about the construction of health the bricoleur steps back and works
without exhaustive preliminary specifications (Kinn et al., 2013, p. 1287). In
developing his conceptualisation of the bricolage and therefore the work of the
bricoleur, Kincheloe (2001, 2005a, b, 2006, 2011) identifies three concepts complexity,
thick description and inter- and multi-disciplinary work that challenges and informs
understanding about researching social contexts. The following section will examine
each of these conceptual components of bricolage and explore what each looks like in
context of the HPS.
The HPS and complexity
The use of bricolage is derived from a specific understanding of the world as being
interconnected and complex. Duymedjian and Ruling (2010) in their consideration of
bricolage argue that everything impacts, so everything matters and therefore deserves
both respect and recognition. Rather than becoming overwhelmed and be at risk of
inaction or worse driven by proven protocols of positivism, the researcher as
bricoleur makes use of what is available to both research and consider what is possible
at that time. Kincheloe (2005a) describes the work of the bricoleur as recognising rather
than ignoring the interconnected nature of social research which therefore requires an
open view of the object of inquiry, it is always a part of many contexts and processes,
(as) it is culturally inscribed and historically situated (p. 333).
According to Tones and Tilford (2001) health promotion is about the pursuit of
holistic goals and equity. This ontological position demands attention to research
methods that are attentive to, reveal and ameliorate what creates health disparities.
Thus complexity is an inherent aspect of health promotion; however, the typical
approach to research is the gathering of evidence from interventions that are simplistic,
seek demonstrable chains of causation and the manipulation of single factors to
produce single and measurable outcomes (McQueen, 2001; McGinnis et al., 2002).
Antonovsky (1996) in his critique of a pathogenic orientation to health argues that this

Bricolage and
the HPS

323

QRJ
14,3

Downloaded by VICTORIA UNIVERSITY (Australia) At 11:41 03 November 2014 (PT)

324

results in negligently ignoring the person and that focusing on a pathology, disability
or particular characteristic of ill health belies the complexity of what it is to be human.
Kincheloes (2008) critique of positivistic research and it use of singular and linear
methods of inquiry and knowledge production and challenging the common sense
positioning of the possibility to reveal universal truths about the how healthy and
healthful lives are created. The development of a setting approach was, according to
Kickbusch (2003), a deliberate move to shift health promotion from focusing on
individual behaviours and communities at risk to developing a strategy that
encompasses a total population within a given setting (p. 385). Health promotion as it
is played out in schools as settings needs to focus on prevention and consider what
Antonovsky (1996) calls salutary factors: factors which are negentropic, actively
promote health, rather than just being low on risk factors (p. 14). These require due
attention to the complexity that arises out of human, social, political and environmental
interrelationships that are multivariate, layered, dynamic, and synergistic (Poland
et al., 2000, p. viii). In describing the ways in which the bricolage addresses complexity,
Kincheloe (2005a, b) identifies a double ontology. The first is the complexity of objects
and the second relates to the ways in which being human are constructed.
A complexity of objects requires us to consider the ontological. According to Rogers
(2012) this means that bricoleurs examine how socio-historical dynamics influence
and shape an object of inquiry (p. 10) and therefore research is not only about what it
mean to be a HPS but also how the HPS persists and changes over time. Thus the
bricoleur explores epistemologically how the HPS is neither a universal experience nor
a static one and that any research needs to be sufficiently agile and critical to both
capture and enable contextual understanding. Schools are social settings whose work
is carried on in the ordinary play of family and community life (Dewey, 1902, p. 74)
and the separation of school life from family/community is improbable as students
navigate between them on a daily basis. It is here that Kincheloes second complexity
on how human being is produced not only by the HPS experience but also by the
bricoleur. Schools are spaces of situated social practice that builds students
knowledge, experience and capacity for health and well-being both their own and
that of their community (Renwick, 2013). For the bricoleur their work requires attention
to and deliberate seeking of those knowledges that are usually silenced in dominant
research narratives (Rogers, 2012, p. 12) and therefore developing capability to disrupt
dominant discourse and knowledge production (Kincheloe, 2005b).
The HPS as a social construct has limitations about what it can be. While
underpinned by principles of social justice and equity, it would be easy to extrapolate
from the research literature that social justice and equity are not necessarily goals of
health interventions. Or that they are readily ameliorated for those with least sociopolitical advantage (and therefore reduced health and well-being) through behaving in
ways that those with most socio-political advantage think they should. Accordingly
the body of research on health promotion and on HPS specifically since the 1990s
indicates that this is complex work, there is a substantial amount of research yet
to be done and ways to engage with this field are both static in some sections and
evolving in others.
Thick descriptions of the HPS
The predominance of research around interventions in the HPS context adds little to
our understandings of why particular common sense behaviours are not taken up in
sustained ways, yet lifestyle illnesses are mutable and the cost of preventable disease in

Downloaded by VICTORIA UNIVERSITY (Australia) At 11:41 03 November 2014 (PT)

both economic and social terms is substantial (Daniels, 2008). Interventions in schools that
focus on heart disease for instance, will typically convey knowledge about diet and
activity for prevention of heart health, behaviour change targets and enact the priorities of
health professionals that arise out of their moral panic (McCarthy et al., 2009). While heart
disease is likely to be a concern as students see adult family members and friends living
the consequences, the impact of interventions are limited because of their social deficit
perspective and the assumption that they just do not get the risks (Hillier, 2006). It is
here that the value of striving to understand not only what students know about health
but what that knowledge means within their lived environments takes us to the
importance of developing thick descriptions from and through bricolage.
Thick descriptions by necessity, engage with local knowledges to gain
understanding about the reciprocal relationship between people and place that
impacts on their health and well-being while simultaneously locating the deterministic
medical paradigm to the side (Dyck, 1999). Bricoleurs do not work to create distance
through objectivity, rather they aim for hermeneutical awareness through thick
description about the complexity of social life (Rogers, 2012). They are prompted to
both acknowledge and work with the diversity that exists within that setting that is
derived from culture, class, language, discipline, epistemology ad infinitum. Bricoleurs
use one dimension of these multiple diversities to explore others, to generate questions
previously unimagined (Kincheloe et al., 2012, p. 23). The diversity that exists within
schools by its very nature, demands, a research gaze that neither overlooks nor disregards
what teachers, students, families and the wider school community do to accomplish daily
living, health and well-being (Bechky, 2006).
Ponterotto (2006) defines thick description as being observed social action and
assigns purpose and intentionality to those action. [y] (and) captures the thoughts and
feelings of participants as well as the often complex web of relationships among them
(p. 543). Bricoleurs utilise opportunities to consider how health and well-being are
constructed in each school and local community. The experience of health is not the same
in all schools as the experience of social determinates of health such as class, gender and
race influence health status but not necessarily as a common good (Daniels, 2008).
Thick descriptions of the HPS requires consideration of what Geertz (1973) called
thinking concretely about sociological concepts, using creativity with the intent to elicit
comprehensive and interesting theories, in this case about health promotion in schools
Any account of a HPS, its complexity and specificity is by definition a thick
description because it provides what Horlick-Jones and Prades (2009) describe as
situationally-specific insights into the underlying social significance of given actions
(p. 417). The bricoleur working in the HPS does not start with a predetermined health
behaviour to change and concern for why are not these (students) aware of the risks?
Instead there is recognition for how meaning-making is a complex, that it is not about
things per se but about objects-in-the-world and draws on critical theory (Kincheloe,
2001, 2005a, b, 2006, 2011). Thus socially insightful (Horlick-Jones and Prades, 2009)
understandings about health not only consider what, for example, a healthy diet might
look like. There is also consideration on what is available in the local food supply (e.g.
supermarkets) and how availability varies between areas of different socioeconomic status,
or why the same item costs more in an area of low socioeconomic status (Renwick, 2013).
The HPS as interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary work
A social perspective of health recognises how schools, as supportive environments, are
places to build capacity for health and well-being including social justice and equity.

Bricolage and
the HPS

325

QRJ
14,3

Downloaded by VICTORIA UNIVERSITY (Australia) At 11:41 03 November 2014 (PT)

326

What understandings there might be about what a HPS is will depend on discipline
and context. Thus an image of a HPS for a teacher, student or parent will be different to
that of a public health worker or social worker because of their particular ontological
positions. Additionally schools are located with variable contexts including the local
physical and social geography that also makes its impact on the health and well-being
of students and wider school community. The challenge for researching the HPS is to
avoid the singular gaze of research through the intervention or behaviour change that
arises out of the social problem/moral panic described by McCarthy et al. (2009) and
promulgated by a hegemonic positioning of biomedical as health.
Kincheloe (2011) argues that bricolage is multidisciplinary research that draws from
a range of methods and using various theoretical insights sourced from a variety of
disciplines. Thus the bricoleur avoids being parochial because they do not rely on
mono-disciplinary approaches to their research but make use of disciplinary, interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary approaches, and thus are able to open new
windows of research and knowledge production (p. 388). The bricoleur develops
epistemological understanding about their knowledge work (Kincheloe, 2005a),
seeking thick descriptions in and of complex settings. Bricoleurs working in the HPS
consider the development of health as phenomena that are set relationally within the
context and constructed with specific social processes (Newbury, 2011). For example,
students who smoke, eat energy-dense food or eschew physical activity do so not
because they do not know the risks rather and more likely, because the behaviour
makes (perverse) sense in their physical and social geographic part of the world.
Taking time to engage in bricolage as multidisciplinary work invariably challenges
the bricoleur to consider what epistemological assumptions are working to shape our
construction of the world and subsequently our actions in it (Kincheloe, 2006, p. 228).
The bricoleur does not stand apart from their research HPS, instead they are working
to understand the HPS and interpret it (Kinn et al., 2013). The bricoleur as a boundary
worker (Kincheloe, 2005a) not only uses what is within their disciplinary field they
also cross boundaries to find what isnt there, what was missing due to neglect
(I dont see how it is important) or censorship (This is not what I want to see/hear).
Revealing the muted perspectives of those who have least opportunity to have their
lived worlds articulated is inevitable and necessary through bricolage (Kincheloe,
2005a). As the bricoleur borrows, collects, commandeers even poaches ideas from
different contexts, and placing them into new contexts different or bespoke
considerations emerge that generate innovative and entrepreneurial responses and
push known limits of knowledge (Newbury, 2011).
The fundamental principles of social justice and equity underpin the Ottawa Charter
(WHO, 1986) and therefore health promotion and the HPS model. Engaging in research for
and about the HPS seems to require, indeed demand more than research in the efficacy
of pre-determined behaviour change interventions that are helicoptered into schools.
The expectation that researchers remain cocooned and removed from the findings of
their research work is not defensible. Researching the HPS in contexts where social
determinates of health are working to undermine health and well-being of students, does
not give license to simply document and interpret that part of the world (Denzin and
Giardina, 2009). Crossing boundaries and engaging in inter-disciplinary and multidisciplinary research undertaken by the bricoleur is not sufficient in and of itself as they
are likely to reveal issues around social justice and equity that need attention and action.
Health promotion is the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to
improve, their health (WHO, 1986) and requires deliberate action to advocate, enable

Downloaded by VICTORIA UNIVERSITY (Australia) At 11:41 03 November 2014 (PT)

and mediate Health for All. Health promotion research has an obligation to do much
more than continue to document intervention projects and health behaviours in and of
themselves as monolithic truth, instead it is the health promotion researchers
responsibility to change the world and to change it in ways that resist injustice while
celebrating freedom and full, inclusive, participatory, democracy (Denzin and
Giardina, 2009, p. 13, original emphasis). Newbury (2011) argues that if the purpose of
research is to contribute to concrete changes in the social world (p. 344) then bricoleurs
are better placed than most to be able to provide insights because they invite and draw
from multiple perspectives.
Conclusion
Health promotion is about social justice where individuals have strengthened personal
skills and capabilities, and there is change to social, environmental and economic
conditions to support public and individual health (WHO, 1986). Steinberg (2012)
argues that scientific research has been able to offer only a limited view of what it is
searching for, yet this approach is the most common used in investigating schools as
settings for health promotion. The investigation of settings as bounded contexts has
been constrained due to the focus on behaviour change related to a predetermined list
of health priorities without sufficient considerations of the lived experienced of those
living with the setting.
The complex nature and varied interests inherent within a setting for health
promotion and especially in schools, suggests a different approach to research is
needed that not only acknowledges different ways of knowing but actually
accommodates them. Bricolage is a methodological process that, in context of a
social situation, changes and evolves not only while but because of the research
activity (Kincheloe et al., 2012). By its very nature it is an epistemology of complexity
(Kincheloe, 2005a), both of what is being investigated and how it is undertaken. Not
only is difference and diversity assumed within the research context, it is actively
sought through the use of multiple methods to not only reveal insights, but also to
expand and modify existing principles, while re-examining previously accepted
interpretations (Kincheloe, 2001) through deep descriptions. To do this requires an
approach of interdisciplinarity where usual disciplinary boundaries are not only
crossed but the analytical frames of multiple disciplines are actively utilised.
What is more, the bricolage understands that the frontiers of knowledge work
rest in the liminal zones where disciplines collide. Thus, in the deep interdisciplinarity
of the bricolage researchers learn to engage in a form of boundary work (Kincheloe,
2001, p. 689).
The experience of each setting is unique and yet investigating the HPS as a setting
is usually done in reductionist ways. In trying to distil the fundamental essence of what
it means to experience the HPS this has been encapsulated into checklists (e.g. the
Victorian Prevention and Health Promotion Achievement Program, 2012); and
externally generated interventions for specific health foci (Dooris, 2004). All of this is
despite recognition that schools respond to change in different ways (Guggleberger,
2011; Poland et al., 2009). Each setting and HPS in particular benefits less from
assumptions about universality and more from an embracing of its unique and
idiosyncratic nature arising out of the students, staff and families that make up the
school and its community, as well as the specific organisational characteristics.
Kincheloe (2011) challenges us to engage as critical pedagogues where the
world is considered in new ways through the posing of questions that expose

Bricolage and
the HPS

327

QRJ
14,3

Downloaded by VICTORIA UNIVERSITY (Australia) At 11:41 03 November 2014 (PT)

328

different and diverse levels of reality and to consider how the experience of the lived
world is influenced.
Settings are complex circumstances. The complexity arises out of the multifaceted
interplay of causal factors that impact on health and well-being, together with the
involved nature of social interactions and relationships in circumstances that are often
the contrary to what people need in a just society. As suggested at the beginning of this
paper the challenge for health promotion and education in schools as a setting,
lies within the ways in which health is viewed (the ontological) and how knowledge
is selected and shared (the epistemological). Rather than rely on one method of
investigation and understanding (Steinberg, 2012) perhaps it is timely to consider other
ontological and epistemological positions and thereby broaden the methodologies used
to explore settings generally and HPS specifically.
References
Antonovsky, A. (1979), Health, Stress and Coping, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.
Antonovsky, A. (1996), The salutongenic model as a theory to guide health promotion, Health
Promotion International, Vol. 11 No. 1, pp. 11-18.
Baric, L. (1993), The settings approach implications for policy and strategy, Journal of the
Institute of Health Education, Vol. 31 No. 1, pp. 17-24.
Baum, F. (2007), Cracking the nut of health equity: top down and bottom up pressure for action
on the social determinants of health, Prevention and Education, Vol. 14 No. 2, pp. 90-95.
Bauer, K.W, Yang, Y.W. and Austin, S.B. (2004), How can we stay healthy when youre throwing
all of this in front of us? Findings from focus groups and interviews in middle schools on
environmental influences on nutrition and physical activity, Health Education Behaviour,
Vol. 31 No. 1, pp. 34-46.
Bechky, B.A. (2006), Talking about machines, thick description, and knowledge work,
Organization Studies, Vol. 27 No. 120, pp. 1757-1768.
Bodstein, R. (2007), The complexity of the discussion on effectiveness and evidence in health
promotion practices, Promotion and Education, Vol. 14 No. 1, pp. 16-20.
Bond, L., Patton, G., Glover, S., Carlin, J.B., Butler, H., Thomas, L. and Bowes, G. (2004),
The gatehouse project: can a multilevel school intervention affect emotional wellbeing
and health risk behaviours?, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, Vol. 58,
pp. 997-1003, doi:10.1136/jech.2003.009449.
Brown, T. and Summerbell, C. (2009), Systematic review of school-based interventions that focus
on changing dietary intake and physical activity levels to prevent childhood obesity: an
update to the obesity guidance produced by the national institute for health and clinical
excellence, Obesity Reviews, Vol. 10 No. 1, pp. 110-141.
Burgher, M.S., Rasmussen, V.B. and Rivett, D. (1999), The European Network of Health Promoting
Schools: The Alliance of Education and Health, WHO Regional Office for Europe.
Colquhoun, D., Goltz, K. and Sheehan, M. (1997), The Health Promoting School: Policy,
Programmes and Practice in Australia, Harcourt Brace & Company, Marrickville.
Crosswaite, C., Currie, C. and Young, Y. (1996), The European network of health promoting
schools: development and evaluation in Scotland, Health Education Journal, Vol. 55 No. 4,
pp. 450-456.
Cuijpers, P. (2002), Effective ingredients of school-based drug prevention programs: a
systematic review, Addictive Behaviors, Vol. 27 No. 6, pp. 1009-1023.
Daniels, N. (2008), Just Health: Meeting Health Needs Fairly, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge.

Downloaded by VICTORIA UNIVERSITY (Australia) At 11:41 03 November 2014 (PT)

Denzin, N. and Giardina, M. (Eds) (2009), Qualitative Inquiry and Social Justice, Left Coast Press,
Walnut Creek, CA.
Dewey, J. (1902), The school as social center, The Elementary School Teacher, Vol. 3 No. 2,
pp. 73-86.
Dewey, J. (1944), Democracy and Education, The Free Press, New York, NY.
Dooris, M. (2004), Joining up settings for health: a valuable investment for strategic
partnerships?, Critical Public Health, Vol. 14 No. 4, pp. 37-49.
Dooris, M. (2010), Holistic and sustainable health promotion: the contribution of the
settings-based approach to health promotion, Perspectives in Public Health, Vol. 129 No. 1,
pp. 29-36.
Dooris, M., Poland, B., Kolbe, L., DeLeeuw, E., McCall, D. and Wharf-Higgins, J. (2007), Building
evidence for effectiveness of whole system health promotion challenges and future
directions, in Jones, C. and McQueen, D. (Eds), Global Perspectives on Health Promotion
Effectiveness, Section 4 Health Settings. Chapter 19, Springer-Verlag Inc., New York, NY,
pp. 327-352.
Dorling, D. (2012), Unequal Health: The Scandal of Our Times, The Policy Press, Bristol.
Durlak, J.A. and DuPre, E.P. (2008), Implementation matters: a review of research on the
influence of implementation on program outcomes and the factors affecting
implementation, American Journal of Community Psychology, Vol. 41 Nos 3/4, pp. 327-350.
Durlak, J.A., Weissberg, R.P., Dymnicki, A.B., Taylor, R.D. and Schellinger, K.B. (2011),
The impact of enhancing students social and emotional learning: a meta-analysis of
school-based universal interventions, Child Development, Vol. 82 No. 1, pp. 405-432.
Dusenbury, L., Brannigan, R., Falco, M. and Hansen, W.B. (2003), A review of research on
fidelity of implementation: implications for drug abuse prevention in school settings,
Health Education Research, Vol. 18 No. 2, pp. 237-256.
Duymedjian, R. and Ruling, C.-C. (2010), Towards a foundation of bricolage in organization and
management theory, Organization Studies, Vol. 31 No. 2, pp. 133-151.
Dyck, I. (1999), Using qualitative methods in medical geography: deconstructive moments
in a subdiscipline, Professional Geographer, Vol. 51 No. 2, pp. 243-253.
Geertz, C. (1973), The Interpretation of Cultures, Basic Books, New York, NY.
Grossman, R. and Scala, K. (1993), Health Promotion and Organizational Development:
Developing Settings for Health, WHO European Health Promotion Series, No. 2.
Guggleberger, L. (2011), Support for health promoting schools: a typology of supporting
strategies in Australian provinces, Health Promotion International, Vol. 26 No. 4,
pp. 447-456.
Harris, K.C., Kuramoto, L.K., Schulzer, M. and Retallack, J.E. (2009), Effect of school-based
physical activity interventions on body mass index in children: a meta-analysis,
Canadian Medical Association Journal, Vol. 180 No. 7, pp. 719-726.
Hatton, E.J. (1988), Teachers work as Bricolage: implications for teacher education, British
Journal of Sociology of Education, Vol. 9 No. 3, pp. 337-357.
Hillier, D. (2006), Communicating Health Risks to the Public, Gower Publishing Limited,
Aldershot.
Honan, E. (2007), Teachers engaging in research as professional development, in Townsend, T.
and Bates, R. (Eds), Globalization, Standards and Professionalism: Teacher Education in
Times of Change, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, MA, pp. 613-624.
Horlick-Jones, T. and Prades, A. (2009), On interpretative risk perception research: some
reflections on its origins; its nature; and its possible applications in risk communication
practice, Health, Risk and Society, Vol. 11 No. 5, pp. 409-430.

Bricolage and
the HPS

329

QRJ
14,3

Downloaded by VICTORIA UNIVERSITY (Australia) At 11:41 03 November 2014 (PT)

330

Jamison, J., Ashby, P., Hamilton, K., Lewis, G., MacDonald, A. and Saunders, L. (1998), The Health
Promoting School: Final Report of the ENHPS Evaluation Project in England, Health
Education Authority, London.
Kickbusch, I. (1996), Tribute to Aaron Antonovsky What creates health, Health Promotion
International, Vol. 11 No. 1, p. 56.
Kickbusch, I. (2003), The contribution of the world health organization to a new public
health and health promotion, American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 93 No. 3, pp. 383-388.
Kincheloe, J.L. (2001), Describing the Bricolage: conceptualizing a new rigor in qualitative
research, Qualitative Inquiry, Vol. 7 No. 6, pp. 679-692.
Kincheloe, J.L. (2005a), On to the next level: continuing the conceptualization of the Bricolage,
Qualitative Inquiry, Vol. 11 No. 3, pp. 323-350.
Kincheloe, J.L. (2005b), Critical Constructivism Primer, Peter Lang Publishing, New York, NY.
Kincheloe, J.L. (2006), A critical politics of knowledge: analyzing the role of educational
psychology in educational policy, Policy Futures in Education, Vol. 4 No. 3, pp. 220-235.
Kincheloe, J.L. (2008) Critical Pedagogy Primer, Peter Lang Publishing, New York, NY.
Kincheloe, J.L. (2011), Critical pedagogy and the knowledge wars of the twenty first century,
in Hayes, K., Steinberg, S.R. and Tobin, K. (Eds), Key Works in Critical Pedagogy,
Joe L. Kincheloe, Chapter 15, Sense Publishers, Rotterdam, pp. 385-405.
Kincheloe, J.L., McLaren, P. and Steinberg, S.R. (2012), Critical pedagogy and qualitative
research: moving to Bricolage, in Steinberg, S.R. and Cannella, G.S. (Eds), Critical
Qualitative Research Reader, Chapter 2, Peter Lang, New York, NY, pp. 14-32.
Kinn, L.G., Holgersen, H., Ekeland, T.-J. and Davidson, L. (2013), Metasynthesis and Bricolage:
an artistic exercise of creating a collage of meaning, Qualitative Health Research, Vol. 23
No. 9, pp. 1285-1292.
Laurence, S., Peterken, R. and Burns, C. (2007), Fresh kids: the efficacy of a health promoting
schools approach to increasing consumption of fruit and water in Australia, Health
Promotion International, Vol. 22 No. 3, pp. 218-226.
Levis-Strauss, C. (1966), The Savage Mind, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
McBride, N., Farringdon, F., Midford, R., Meuleners, L. and Phillips, M. (2004), Harm
minimization in school drug education: final results of the School Health and Alcohol
Harm Reduction Project (SHAHRP), Addiction, Vol. 99 No. 3, pp. 278-291.
McCarthy, C., Rezai-Rashti, G.M. and Teasley, C. (2009), Race, diversity, and curriculum in the
era of globalization, Curriculum Inquiry, Vol. 9 No. 1, pp. 76-96.
McGinnis, J.M., Williams-Russo, P., Michael, J. and Knickman, J.R. (2002), The case for more
active policy attention to health promotion, Health Affairs, Vol. 21 No. 2, pp. 78-93.
McQueen, D.V. (2001), Strengthening the base for health promotion, Health Promotion
International, Vol. 16 No. 3, pp. 261-268.
Mellanby, A.R., Rees, J.E. and Tripp, J.H. (2000), Peer-led and adult-led school health education:
a critical review of available comparative research, Health Education Research: Theory
and Practice, Vol. 15 No. 5, pp. 533-545.
Mitchell, J., Palmer, S. and Davies, G.P. (2000), A randomised trial of an intervention to develop
health promoting schools in Australia: the south western Sydney study, Australian and
New Zealand Journal of Public Health, Vol. 24 No. 3, pp. 242-245.
Moon, A.M., Mullee, M.A., Rogers, L., Thompson, R.L., Speller, V. and Roderick, P. (1999),
Helping schools to become health-promoting environments an evaluation of the Wessex
healthy schools award, Health Promotion International, Vol. 14 No. 2, pp. 111-121.
Mukoma, W. and Flisher, A.J. (2004), Evaluations of health promoting schools: a review of nine
studies, Health Promotion International, Vol. 19 No. 3, pp. 357-368.

Downloaded by VICTORIA UNIVERSITY (Australia) At 11:41 03 November 2014 (PT)

Newbury, J. (2011), A place for theoretical inconsistency, International Journal of Qualitative

Methods, Vol. 10 No. 4, pp. 335-347.
ODea, J. and Maloney, D. (2000), Preventing eating and body image problems in children and
adolescents using the health promoting schools framework, Journal of School Health,
Vol. 70 No. 1, pp. 18-21.
Patton, G.C., Bond, L., Carlin, J.B., Thomas, L., Butler, H., Glover, S., Catalano, R. and Bowes, G.
(2006), Promoting social inclusion in schools: a group-randomized trial of effects on
student health risk behavior and well-being, American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 96
No. 9, pp. 1582-1587.
rez-Rodrigo, C. and Aranceta, J. (2001), School-based nutrition education: lessons learned
PeA
and new perspectives, Public Health Nutrition, Vol. 4 No. 1A, pp. 131-139.
Poland, B., Krupa, G and McCall, D. (2009), Setting for health promotion: an analytic framework
to guide intervention design and implementation, Health Promotion Practice, Vol. 10
No. 4, pp. 505-516.
Poland, B.D., Green, L.W. and Rootman, I. (Eds), (2000), Settings for Health Promotion: Linking
Theory and Practice, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA.
Ponterotto, J.G. (2006), Brief note on the origins, evolution, and meaning of the
qualitative research concept thick description, The Qualitative Report, Vol. 11 No. 3,
pp. 538-549.
Renwick, K. (2006), Health promoting schools: the right way, Unpublished thesis, Victoria
University, Melbourne.
Renwick, K. (2013), Food literacy as a form of critical pedagogy: implications for curriculum
development and pedagogical engagement of Australias diverse student population,
Victorian Journal of Home Economics, Vol. 52 No. 2, pp. 6-17.
Rogers, M. (2012), Contextualizing theories and practices of bricolage research, The Qualitative
Report, Vol. 17 No. 7, pp. 1-17.
Sahota, P., Rudolf, M.C.J., Dixey, R., Hill, A.J., Barth, J.H. and Cade, J. (2001), Evaluation of
implementation and effect of primary school based intervention to reduce risk factors
for obesity, British Medical Journal, Vol. 323, November, pp. 1-4, doi:10.1111/j.1467-842X.
2000.tb01560.x.
Schofield, M.J., Lynagh, M. and Mishra, G. (2003), Evaluation of a health Promoting Schools
program to reduce smoking in Australian secondary schools, Health Education Research,
Vol. 18 No. 6, pp. 678-692.
Scribner, J.P. (2005), The problems of practice: bricolage as a metaphor for teachers work and
learning, The Alberta Journal of Educational Research, Vol. 51 No. 4, pp. 295-310.
Sharma, M. (2006), School-based interventions for childhood and adolescent obesity, Obesity
Reviews, Vol. 7 No. 3, pp. 261-269.
Shaya, F.T., Flores, D., Gbarayor, C.M. and Wang, J. (2008), School-based obesity interventions: a
literature review, Journal of School Health, Vol. 78 No. 4, pp. 189-196.
Shepherd, J., Harden, A., Rees, R., Brunton, G., Garcia, J., Oliver, S. and OakleyYoung, A. (2006),
Young people and healthy eating: a systematic review of research on barriers and
facilitators, Health Education Research, Vol. 21 No. 2, pp. 239-257.
Sobczyk, W., Hazel, N., Reed, C.D., Ciarroccki, B., Cohen, S. and Varga, D. (1995),
Health promoting schools of excellence: a model program for Kentucky and the
nation, Journal of the Kentucky Medical Association, Vol. 93 No. 4, pp. 142-147.
Steinberg, S.R. (2012), Critical cultural studies research: bricolage in action, in Steinberg, S.R.
and Cannella, G.S. (Eds), Critical Qualitative Research Reader, Chapter 13, Peter Lang,
New York, NY, pp. 182-199.

Bricolage and
the HPS

331

QRJ
14,3

Downloaded by VICTORIA UNIVERSITY (Australia) At 11:41 03 November 2014 (PT)

332

Stice, E., Shaw, H. and Marti, C.N. (2006), A meta-analytic review of obesity prevention
programs for children and adolescents: the skinny on interventions that work,
Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 132 No. 5, pp. 667-691.
Tones, K. and Tilford, S. (2001), Health Promotion: Effectiveness, Efficiency and Equity, 3rd ed.,
Nelson Thornes Ltd, Cheltenham.
Victorian Prevention and Health Promotion Achievement Program (2012), State Government of
Victoria, http://docs.health.vic.gov.au/docs/doc/7CEB9187A543A1D3CA2579D1001F9F20/
$FILE/CCV_EC%208pp%20Intro%20Brochure%20-%20Apr4.pdf (accessed 26 June 2013).
Vreeman, R.C. and Carroll, A.E. (2007), A systematic review of school-based interventions to
prevent bullying, Archives of Paediatric Adolescent Medicine, Vol. 161 No. 1, pp. 78-88.
Wells, J., Barlow, J. and Stewart-Brown, S. (2003), A systematic review of universal approaches
to mental health promotion in schools, Health Education, Vol. 103 No. 4, pp. 197-220.
Whitelaw, S., Braxendale, A., Bryce, C., MacHardy, L., Young, L. and Whitney, E. (2001),
Setting based health promotion: a review, Health Promotion International, Vol. 16 No. 22,
pp. 339-353.
Wilkinson, R. (2005), Social corrosion, inequality and health, in Giddens, A. and Diamond, P.
(Eds), The New Egalitarianism, Chapter 11, Polity Press, Cambridge, pp. 183-199.
World Health Organisation (WHO) (1986), Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, document
endorsed by the First International Conference on Health Promotion, Ottawa, November.
World Health Organisation (WHO) (2009), Milestones in Health Promotion: Statements from
Global Conferences, World Health Organisation, Geneva.
About the author
Dr Kerry Renwick is an Academic Researcher at the Victoria University with an interest in health
education and social justice. She has worked in secondary schools, vocational education and
training, and in public health nutrition. Kerrys post-graduate studies have covered curriculum,
pedagogy, organisational leadership and health promoting schools. Dr Kerry Renwick can be
contacted at: Kerry.Renwick@vu.edu.au

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com

Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints